August 2016

Jul 31, 2007

Joel Landau writes the N&R: "Please, News & Record, do your civic duty and report on all the
candidates this time around so the voters can decide who the most
qualified are. You might list the campaign Web sites of those who have
one, so interested voters can check the candidate out thoroughly. Mine
is www.JoelLandau.com."

The N&R should run a list of candidate pages on a regular basis, online and in print, and report on the content as well.

Anyone who knows of a GSO/Guilford campaign site, send it along and I'll list it in here, too. I found a site for Yvonne Johnson. More linked here, some already in lefthand column.

UPDATE: An uninspiring response from JR, who says, "voters aren't ready" yet for election coverage. I posted some thoughts in his comments.

Thanks for providing that information and the links Ed.
The coverage I've seen for Landau so far was that he announced his fund raiser to be at a "Democratic Reunion" in a supposedly non-partisan race.
Is we is, or is we ain't, gonna have a non-partisan City Council election?

In at least one substantive way it is not a shame at all. Non-partisan races allow unaffilated candidates and third party candidates to have equal access. Should council elections become officially partisan, non-affiliated candidates will be required to meet some kind of threshold to get on the ballot not impossed on party-nominated candidates, like having to gather a certain number of signatures.

Non-partisan city council races keep the process open to candidates of any affiliation. I think that best serves Greensboro. Don't you?

I did not say they did. As I quite clearly stated, partisan races will require third party and unaffiliated candidates to surmount some new hurdle that currently doesn't exist, such as gathering a number of signatures.

Instead of digging your heels in just to argue, Bubba, why don't you tell us why you support a change that would make it harder for people to get on the ballot.

Please explain to me, Bubba, how candidates would get on the primary ballot and how they would get on the general election ballot under the partisan elections you envision. Please be sure to explain the proceedure for both major party candidates and for unaffiliated or third-party candidates for the primary and general elections.

Usually a partisan election means that the primaries are used to whittle the party-affiliated candidates down to one for each party--that's more problematic as far as giving full and equal access to unaffiliated candidates.

Thanks for this discussion. You have single-handedly demonstrated that your idea serves only your desire to be disagreeable, as serious suggestions for positive change, they are hollow. Bubba rolls snake eyes again -- makes a lot of noise while doing it, but craps out when it comes to substance.

"Thanks for this discussion. You have single-handedly demonstrated that your idea serves only your desire to be disagreeable, as serious suggestions for positive change, they are hollow. Bubba rolls snake eyes again -- makes a lot of noise while "

And this shit didn't start two comments ago. If it's going to stop, you are going to have to be a part of making it stop, Bubba. That means not falling right back into the same old routine at the first provocation.

No, the point is Bubba made an assertion -- that non-partisan local elections are a "sham." He offered nothing of substance beyond that. Asked for examples of how partisan elections would benefit the community, how they would work in practice or how his ideas would make ballot access more fair, he crumbles. After the time and energy I spent attempting to engage Bubba in good faith on this issue to no avail, I don't apologize for pointing out his idiocy.

Well, ignoring the usual bluster as best as I can, here's a reason that I like non-partisan local elections. In the last election, I supported Diane Davis for City Council because I agreed with most of her ideas and thought that the CC needed a downtowner, non-developer, small business owner. Admitting my partisanship here, I would probably not been as willing to pay attention to her ideas had I known that she was registered in a party that I do not agree with on nearly everything at a state and national level. Most people these days have biases and preconceived views about one party or another.

I had a good long talk with my wife about the sometimes irresistible urge to respond to stuff when you know it's not productive. She says it's part of basic human hard wiring, similar to the good old "orienting" response that keeps us aware of threats. You see something move in the corner of your eye and you automatically turn your head, just in case it's a saber tooth tiger.

For me, it takes great restraint to hold back and let things flow by without commentary. Sort of like being David (?) Carradine on Kung Fu . . . letting the bad guys pass until you finally have to beat the crap out of them in self defense. For the most part, that physical danger rarely materializes, though I have been personally threatened more times than I care to remember.

All of which leads me to take Ed's advice, to breathe a little more often, and keep my so-called powder dry until the shit really hits the fan.

You argue that " party lines often fail to define positions on local issues, in a useful way. " If taxing, spending and growth of government isn't the most fundamental local issue I don't know what is and is a major difference between the two major parties

I have a friend who recently received a mail solicitation from Yvonne Johnson asking for money. In fact she lives in the county and can't vote in city elections. We suspect her name was plucked from a list of the Democrat Womens Club. She has been forgiven and has not been active with that bunch for many , many years. These elections are non-partisan in name only. Greensboro should follow Ashville's lead and switch to partisan elections.

I'd find it useful for some of the elections to know who's a D or an R (or an L, or a commie, or a green, or whatever), so I'd have some baseline guess as to what their priorities are, even if those priorities don't always translate well to community issues. If the N&R printed a better election guide for local elections, then I wouldn't need this, but I don't usually find the time to research every single city, county, or judge election. I fear I've occasionally voted for somebody horribly opposed to my views because I can't remember my research when I get to the booth.

I don't think you'd have to have a primary; just indicate an affiliation if the individual wanted to list one.

Dishing it out and taking it is fine. Following the same pattern time and again, with no change, ever, thread after thread after thread, so that every thread becomes about the same commenter, is tiresome.

Fred, I don't think those issues are as partisan at a local level sometimes, nor should they be. For that matter, spending and government growth aren't the property of one party at the national level these days, either.

Bubba, it did not start with that comment, or in this thread. I mean for this to end.

I disagree that our local elections are nonpartisan in name only. Keith Holliday, to choose one example, moves comfortably through a lot of arenas in ways that a mayor elected as a Democrat might not be able to do. Ditto Robbie Perkins, a Republican.

Interesting that some of the more partisan Republicans in these comments really want partisan elections -- my guess is that a partisan council in GSO would elect a lot of Democrats, and that once elected on party lines they might be more prone to acting on party lines than now. Not what I want to see.

Back to the original topic: Joel asked the N&R to do its "civic duty" by providing fuller coverage of local electoral candidates. JR's response was abysmal. (Gosh, aren't we all be better off for reading an article about a local woman on a wife-swapping reality show?)

This is not a political party issue; this is yet another example of the city's largest and most influential newspaper failing to recognize important local issues.

If the past is any predictor of the future, sometime in Sept. the N&R will publish a list of candidates featuring:

Name
Address
Employment
Previous offices held
Church affiliation
Civic group memberships
Two or three of their key issues
Website

Then one Sun. in late Oct., there will be a two-page spread giving the candidates 100 words or so to respond to a few questions on hot local topics from the N&R's editorial board.

Ho hum.

Margaret Banks has said that she is already doing the groundwork for her election coverage, and she sounds a lot more enthusiastic than JR about the need for some depth in that coverage. Her recent reporting has been excellent (keep poking, MB!), which encourages me to think her local elex. work will be equally impressive.

The problem, of course, is that the final decisions are made by editors. And if her editor is not equally enthusiastic...

(In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer live in Guilford Co. I still consider GSO my hometown, though. Does that make me a vicarious voter?)

Just so you know, my editor (Eddie Wooten) is working on a new improved list of biographical stuff for candidates. He thought the old model needed revamping, too.

Also, the questionnaire we sent to candidates is different this year. The questions are REALLY specific and tailored to each seat/district.

Can't remember if I wrote this before or not, so I apologize if I'm repeating myself: This is my 7th Greensboro City Council election cycle with this newspaper, and I haven't seen anything this interesting and different before.

I appreciated Elizabeth Wheaton's more thorough look-back at past News & Record coverage.

She implies--and I agree--that the News & Record coverage can go further this year.

And it's very cool that Margaret Banks is in this discussion and not taking offense that readers are offering input.

Margaret's also beautifully modeling how to respond to other's comments--with respect, with acknowledgement, with her own points, even with humor.

Criticism--even constructive criticism, which I think and hope is what some of us are trying to provide--isn't easy for most of us to take.

I've received it before, and even when I know the criticism might be true--maybe very true--a part of me wants to get defensive and start saying, "But hey, don't you appreciate what I have been doing?"

I'm going to try to be tough and positive like Margaret!

Finally, I strongly agree that the city council needs to remain non-partisan.

I think Ed made a great point about Mayor Holliday, and I didn't think Robbie Perkins was such a bad example either.

Again, looking around the web, it's interesting that the support for partisan elections seems to come mostly from people who voice highly partisan points of view. I don't think that's what I want for GSO government.